It was the year before the turn of the century, and the music industry was on a high. Rap was seeing its last year in the 90s, and Nas was ready to go out with a bang. Still, bringing that moment to fruition would cause one of the greatest upsets in hip-hop history, while it would also be a casualty of opportunistic rivals via modern technology. In the first installment of “Rewind ‘99,” we’re looking back at Nas’ I Am on its 25th anniversary.

In hindsight, I Am will always be a cautionary tale about limitless power in the tech age, how friends can become foes, and what redemption looks like in the face of aversion.

Before the New York rapper began recording "I Am," he had already embarked on a journey for a trilogy highlighting his journey from boyhood to manhood. The trifecta would feature his debut album, 1994's Illmatic, with I Am in the middle, and Stillmatic, released in 2001 and would wrap up the ternary.

When his third studio album, I Am, hit store shelves, it would be due to an unexpected grab for all that left him exposed to the masses.

Nas –whose real name is Nasir Jones– initially set out to drop a double disc album entitled I Am…The Autobiography in 1998. Still, that plan was thwarted when over a dozen tracks from the album were leaked onto the internet via MP3 format. It would be one of the first times in history when bootleggers would pull off such a sophisticated level of piracy.

After that, Nas and his team at Columbia Records decided to formally release I Am as a single disc on April 6, 1999. The 17-track LP featured songs "Nas is Like" and heavyweights in the game from Scarface, DMX, Aaliyah, and Diddy (whose stage name at the time was Puff Daddy), who was featured on "Hate Me Now," which was not originally intended to make the cut.

Even so, bootleggers wouldn't be the last of Nas' challenges on this album.

To bring the project to life, Nas teamed with celebrity photographer Danny Hastings to shoot the cover art, but that moment nearly ended in death.

The vision was curated in an intricate design to make a mold of Nas' face in the shape of a Pharoah mask by using a clay-like substance. The procedure would also require artisans to poke holes in his nose to support his breathing. But a freak accident occurred when the clay began to travel up Nas' nose, suffocating him.

"The funny part was that on the first attempt, Nas was getting asphyxiated. We almost killed Nas," Hastings recounted the incident to MTV's "Mixtape Daily" in 2011.

While the rapper's tenacity was tested, he was determined not to let a near-fatal incident have the last say.

"We cleaned him up, and he was like, 'Let's do it again!' " Hastings explained. "Nas was a true sport."

After surviving a close call with death, Nas would see the success of the album in real-time.

The album skyrocketed to #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold 470,000 copies in its first week. It became certified gold and secured double platinum status in the United States. I Am also garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. It also towered to #1 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.

The single "Nas is Like" entered Billboard's Hot 100 list at number 86 and climbed to the third spot on the Hot Rap Songs chart. His collaboration with Diddy peaked at the 62nd spot and spent eight weeks on the chart. It also rose to the eighth spot on the Hot Rap Songs list.

Still, critics who believed Nas was less underwhelming would need more than hit singles. At the time, Miles Marshall Lewis of LA Weekly blasted it as his "worst album."

While reviewing the album, Marshall said, "Somebody should take the weight for encouraging Nas to tightrope the line between order and chaos, gangsterism and enlightenment. "I Am" is not a horrendous album. But Nas has now established a pattern of declining album quality, and that makes "I Am" . . . Nas' worst album. You can hate me now."

Despite harsh opinions, the album acquired much support.

Longtime USA Today writer Steve Jones (who died in 2013) rated the album four out of four stars, highlighting the rapper's "dense and deft rhymes" and "nimble, cinematic descriptions." He added that the album "nestles nicely between the underground grittiness of 1994's Illmatic and the high gloss of 1996's It Was Written."

More issues would plague the album, including the music video for "Hate Me Now," directed by iconic producer Hype Williams.

The first issue that led to public outcry was Nas's vision to include a crucifixion scene while he portrayed Jesus. During a wide-ranging discussion with VH1 in 2012, the rapper explained that he had longed to do the religious scene since childhood.

"The crucifixion scene was my idea I had before I even had a record, when I was 16. It was supposed to be my album cover," he explained to the outlet. Nas also said the single was the perfect way to call out racism following discrimination he believed Blair Underwood faced while portraying Jesus in a production.

"People were protesting and I was like 'Wow, they're protesting a Black man playing Jesus, in this day and age? I even think the major at the time Giuliani, had something negative to say (if I'm not mistaken about the play), he wasn't into it. And I felt like, OK. Watch this."'

More drama within the over-the-top visual—which featured a club scene punctuated by strippers and Nas along with Diddy standing atop a bodega—concerned Diddy's faith and a five-second clip of him portraying a beggar being nailed to a cross. The Bad Boy founder and CEO requested the scene be removed, but the scene was still included when the music video premiered on MTV's TRL.

Immediately following the premiere of the video, Diddy barged into Nas' manager, Steve Stoute's office, and confronted him about the unedited video while smashing a bottle over his head. The incident resulted in Diddy's arrest along with a lawsuit. After he reportedly apologized, Stoute asked the judge to drop the charges, and Diddy agreed to pay him $500,000, as cited by the New York Daily News.

"For some reason, I think Steve Stoute let it fly with Puffy still being crucified to the cross, so there was that fight at the office, where Puff jumped on Steve or some s - - t like that. Both of them were friends of mine, so I squashed the whole thing, and it’s all in the past. Just growing pains. We were all growing up. That brings back a lot of memories. Even when I throw it on onstage now, it still kills," said Nas, as reported by The Source.

A new music video cut was later re-released without that scene of Diddy.

"The first edit of this video at this time had to be the greatest thing anyone has ever seen. Because of who Puff was and where he was going, he needed a release so he had no restraints filming this video,” Williams explained while speaking on Red Bull’s New York Director’s Series discussion panel in 2018. “The things that he did and the things we filmed him doing were so radical when edited to this music, I couldn’t even describe it, but at this time, the greatest thing we’ve ever seen was Puff as a special effect."

25 years later, there are currently little to no traces of the original cut on the web.

Despite multiple scandals that emerged, Nas revealed that music video is one of his favorites.

"I just felt like at a part in my career, [I] felt like I was being crucified," he said while appearing on 106 & Park. "So we did that with the crosses, and no disrespect to any religions."

When co-host Free asked how he handled the controversy surrounding the video, Nas said, "My thing is to step into the game with it. It's a lot of ignorance [and] stupid people," while challenging others to "change the mind frames."

Over a decade after releasing this album, Nas honored his original plan by debuting "I Am… The Autobiography" in November 2023. The limited release only published 4,100 copies that were available for purchase.

While the rap game has evolved, I Am remains a global treasure. Composed of a story that illustrates the consciousness of an awakened society synchronized with gangster flair, this classic rap album enlightens the complexities of the Black experience.

As woke culture continues to be portrayed in rap and Hip-Hop across the genre, the essence of I Am permeates today, seeking to empower new fans of the category while saluting the struggle of those whose stories are embedded within its lyrics.